10 Coolest Keyboard Shortcuts You Never Knew About

Keyboard shortcuts are the lifeblood of many productive Mac users. Not only can they cut down on the time needed to complete a task, but they're also just plain cool. Here are 10 of the coolest, including several that most people haven't heard of.

1. Command + Option + Control + Eject

Use the keyboard combination of Command + Option + Control + Eject to instantly shut down your Mac. (And we mean instantly — make sure you've saved any open files!) This is a great time saver because it bypasses the shut-down counter that you get when using Apple menu > Shut Down (shown above). You can also put your Mac to sleep by pressing Command + Option + Eject.

2. Command + Shift + A/U/D

These keyboard shortcuts are used to navigate around the Finder. To open the Applications folder on your Mac, press Command + Shift + A in an opened Finder window; press Command + Shift + U to open the Utilities folder; and, press Command + Shift + D to open your Desktop folder in the Finder. These keyboard shortcuts can also be used when in an opened save dialog to navigate to these folders.

3. Command + Shift + I

When used inside of Safari, this keyboard shortcut (Command + Shift + I) will automatically generate a new email message inside of Mail.app and paste the link of the web page you were browsing in the body text. This shortcut is great for quickly sharing a website address with a friend via email.

4. Control + D

To the bane of many Windows to Mac switchers, the Mac's "Delete" key doesn't actually function as the delete key does in Windows. The "Delete" key on the Mac instead functions as a backspace. To remedy this, you can instead use Control + D in any text area on your Mac to delete from the front of the cursor.

5. Command + Control + Option + 8

Use this keyboard shortcut to invert the colors on your Mac's screen. (Note: This won't work until you go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Accessibility and tick the "Invert Colors" box.) This high contrast display is used by individuals with visual impairments needing high-contrast screens, but can also provide a cool effect. Warning: This keyboard shortcut may be useful when doing April fool's pranks, but Mac|Life will not be responsible for any damages resulting from the prank recipient trying to beat their Mac back into shape.

6. Command + Control + D

When writing, we often need to quickly look up the meaning of a word; however, it can be a pain to open a dictionary and type in the word we want to look up. Instead, we prefer this nice way to quickly look up a word. With your mouse cursor over top of the word you'd like to look up, press Command + Control + D. A dialog will then pop up with the word defined by the built-in Mac OS X dictionary.

7. Command + Shift + 4 + Space Bar

At Mac|Life, we deal with a lot of screenshots on a daily basis, and this little-known keyboard combination allows us to capture a screenshot of only the window we need. To grab just a one-window screenshot, press Command + Shift + 4, then when the crosshairs appear, press the space bar. The cross hairs will change to a picture of a camera that can be placed over top of the window to be captured and clicked. The resulting window-only screenshot will appear on your Desktop.

8. Command + Option + M

Sometimes when you're working on a large task, you lose track of just how many windows you've opened on your Mac. To minimize all of your opened windows and de-clutter your screen, just press Command + Option + M to have all of the windows minimized to the Dock.

9. Command + Shift + Option + Esc

Mac applications can sometimes get unruly and crash. When this happens, you can press and hold Command + Shift + Option + Esc for three seconds to instantly Force Quit the application, and bypassing the Force Quit app.

10. Command + `

Command + Shift + Tab is a great way to cycle through all of the different applications and windows opened on your Mac, but what if you only want to cycle through the current application's opened windows? In that case, use Command + ` (the ` is located on the key above Tab, next to the number 1). This keyboard combination will cycle through all of the opened windows in the currently active application.

Do you know of another time-saving keyboard shortcut that you use? Let us know about it in the comments section below.

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Press these in Finder while multiple items are selected to see the total size of the selected items in the Multiple Item Info window. If folders are selected, be aware of your permissions to access nested items.

I'm a huge hot key fanatic. I prefer to use hot keys, rather than mouse, were practical.

One that I use ALL the time is the Enter Key. Both the Enter Key and it's cousin the Return Key can be used to activate whatever button in a dialog box is highlighted blue (usually the OK button or its equivalent). The Enter Key is closest to my mouse hand, so I can hit it practically without letting go of the mouse.

As someone else mentioned, the Command+D will activate the Don't button. A lot of buttons in dialog boxes can be activated by hitting Command+[Initial letter on the button].

So, for example: I open an InDesign document and make a change, then hit Command+W (close window), and the dialog pops up with 3 options — Don't Save (Command+D), Cancel (Esc), or Save, highlighted blue, (Enter or Return).

At first, when I highlighted a word, it didn't work for me either, so I just placed my cursor on the word and it worked. But after that, I could have the word highlighted or not and it worked every time.

I love keyboard shortcuts...it makes life easier. I use KB Covers for application shortcuts, but I just noticed they had an OSX shortcut cover which looks like it has the OSX shortcuts right on the cover.

I've never used the OSX cover, but I have used their other products....which are fantastic.

Me neither, but it worked when I tried it in the Guest Account. You could assign a key command to the "Look Up in Dictionary" service in the Keyboard pref pane, but that would actually launch the Dictionary application.

Correction on #4. Most Apple keyboards, now, all come with the "fn" key. Hold that down and hit backspace will do the reverse delete and delete what's in front of the cursor, not go back. I know someone already mentioned it, but it's helpful to re-emphasize.

#7. Holding down control while doing Command-Shift-3 (full screen) or 4 (selection window) will save it into your clipboard so you can paste it somewhere else. I use that one every day to copy a screenshot of my schedule from a website and save it into a sticky on my desktop. I use that command constantly to take portions of my screen and paste them somewhere (mostly in e-mail).

Well, in non-Apple programs (such as MS Word) it appears to be NEITHER.
Yes, Control+4 does function as a "delete" key in Pages, but not in MS Word.
I use Fn+Backspace to delete forward of the cursor, as it appears to work in every program.

Apple's Help explains using Grab app for Screen capture, but it is so easy to do Command + Shift + 4 which changes cursor to the capture marque tool to drag a rectangle over what you want and then the image file is saved on Desktop; hit ESC key to stop the capture if you need. Tapping the Space key toggles between Marque and single click Window capture. Additionally Command + Shift + Control + 4 will capture screen image just to Clipboard ( no file ), you can then immediately Paste into an e-mail or document, etc.

shortcut #4 Forward Delete had "you can instead use Command + D" -- it is Control + D as stated in title.

shortcut #6 Dictionary panel - additionally if you change the Dictionary.app Preferences "Contextual menu" option to "Open Dictionary Panel" you can get the same quick definition panel of a single word by Right Clicking and selecting Look Up in Dictionary (without needing to use keyboard)

shortcut #1 A simple Control + Eject brings up 4 options dialog ( can also tap MacBook Power button ) with Shut Down the default, so a Return key will then do Shut Down; and "S" key will Sleep; and "R" key will Restart; and Command period will Cancel the dialog ( no need for mouse )